[Today we begin Karate Kid Week, an extended consideration of the seminal work of 1980s cinema. –Ed.]

It pained me to type that title. Really, it did, because I love that scrappy kid. He moved to a new town, got the girl, and wore one of the greatest Halloween costumes in history. But I’ve watched his final, dramatic Crane Kick over and over, and I’m convinced that any decent karate judge would have kicked him out of the tournament for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfJEG-sluwY

Read on, and judge for yourself.

We don’t learn much about the rules of the All Valley Karate Tournament. About 30 seconds before Daniel’s first fight, his now-sort-of-girlfriend Ali briefs him on the rules:

Everything above your waist is a point. You can hit the head, sternum, kidneys, ribs.

Fair enough. So a kick to the head should be fair game.

HOWEVER. I have consulted the USANKF Sport Karate Rules, and they make it very clear that in a tournament, you do not have a license to strike someone as hard as you can. Allow me to quote from Article 8: “Prohibited Behavior.”

Traditional Karate techniques delivered full-power can cause extremely serious injury, even death. Karate competition is a sport, and for that reason some of the most dangerous techniques are banned and all techniques must be controlled.

It looks to ME like he’s kicking the guy in the face as hard as he possibly can. Daniel could have easily broken Johnny’s nose, or even snapped his neck.

Of course, I’m not an expert. Terry Bryan, on the other hand, is. Terry amassed over 300 karate tournament victories, and served as General Secretary for the USA National Karate-Do Federation. I emailed Terry and asked him to watch Daniel’s Crane Kick. He emailed me back and confirmed my worst fears:

Depending on the rules of that specific tournament but in most, yes he would have been disqualified.

Now I suppose he does allow us a little wiggle room – we don’t know what crazy rules could have been in play at the All Valley Tournament. Maybe kicking a guy in the face with all the force you can muster is a perfectly legal technique, thanks to the aggressive lobbying of the Cobra Kai.

But just watch the kick a final time, now slowed down and magnified to show the impact.

18 Comments on “Karate Kid Week: Disqualify Daniel Larusso”

This is all hypothetical anyway. The Cobra guy would have been disqualified or possibly arrested after the first two rounds for cheating like a bastard, so if the tournaments had any rules at all it wouldn’t have gotten to this point anyway.

Yes, but Daniel Larusso is always held up as different from the antagonists in some key way – different from the Cobra Kai because he believes in responsibility, training and tradition rather than violence and thug mentality, and different from the Okinawan antagonists in Karate Kid II because he believes in mercy and forgiveness.

We may have to confront the unfortunate reality that Karate Kid I is, ideologically, a lot more like Karate Kid III than we’d like to think.

In a tournament today, he would most like be disqualified for excessive contact. HOWEVER… We’re talking about 1984 – 24 years ago.

Also consider that nobody in the tournament is wearing any protective gear – no hand or foot pads and no head gear. Sweeps are allowed as well as striking the head once an opponent is down.

I know that my instructors have told stories of their late 70’s tournaments where it wasn’t exactly Bloodsport, but it was fairly full contact.. if you didn’t want to get kicked in the face, you should learn how to block.

Here’s a question – if Daniel Larusso is disqualified for putting too much force into his crane kick to the face, how does this change _The Karate Kid_? What happens, and what’s the moral of the story?

1. Johnny is seriously injured by the hard kick to the head. Suddenly, Daniel comes off as the bad guy – the whole sweeping the leg thing is forgotten as paramedics rush Johnny to the hospital. He may never walk again. Everyone boos Daniel. The tournament is widely criticized for allowing him to compete, since he clearly has no formal training. Mr. Miyagi is sued for falsely vouching for his experience level. But more importantly, Daniel has become what he most hates – he’s used karate in anger, for vengeance. This would be particularly interesting in light of the earlier locker room scene, after his injury. Miyagi tried to convince Daniel he doesn’t need to fight anymore. He’d already proven himself. But Daniel insisted on continuing. If he then severely injures or kills Johnny, with a technique he’s never even tried before, then he’s come full circle and betrayed everything Miyagi tried to teach him.

2. Let’s say Johnny isn’t injured, but the ref steps in and disqualifies Daniel anyway. I think the plot becomes about the ref being in league with the Cobra Kai. There’s a fine tradition of sports stories where the administrators try and throw up obstacles to squash the underdog outsider. (One of my sister’s favorite movies, Stick It, is entirely about female gymnasts rebelling against the tyranny of biased and unfair judging.) Anyway, in THAT Karate Kid, maybe there’s another 30 minutes of movie. Daniel appeals his disqualification, gives a big speech in front of the Karate Review Board. They grant him a rematch against Johnny, to be held at the Karate Federation’s national tournament in Orlando, Florida. Before the match, Sensei Kreese tries to convince Johnny to cheat again. Johnny refuses. He wants to fight with honor for once, and find out who’s REALLY the best. Before the match, he apologizes to Daniel for bullying him. They have a good, clean match, and Daniel wins. “Are you happy now?” demands Kreese furiously to his star pupil. “Actually,” says Johnny, “I’m happier than I’ve been in a while.” The entire Cobra Kai defects to study with Mr. Miyagi. The final scene is Daniel supervising the construction of a brand new karate studio. The ex-Cobra Kai are happily painting and sanding under Miyagi’s supervision. Daniel thanks Miyagi for everything, jumps in his convertible, and drives off to have sex with Elisabeth Shue.

A little off-topic, but Belinkie is getting at a point that struck me as I watched Karate Kid last week: the movie just ended. No denouement. Just crane stance kick, freeze frame, credits. Instead of having such a drawn out first act, the movie should have kept going for at least a few minutes after the final fight so the audience could soak in whatever lessons we’re supposed to learn, whether that is “Daniel Larusso fought fairly and is awesome” or “Daniel Larusso fought unfairly and became that which he hates.”

This is all to say that Matt Belinkie should have written The Karate Kid.

Shana-
The thing is, I feel like it’s not uncommon at all for sports movies to end really quickly at the moment of victory, no denouement. Rocky, for example. Not saying I love it, just saying it’s sort of the style.
– Matt

There isn’t an extended version with scenes from after the tournament? You know, like _Author! Author!_ and the stuff about him getting dragged out of bed by the kids? I think a longer ending to _The Karate Kid_ would have done the same thing the longer version of _Author! Author!_ is argued to have done: kill the mood. Viewers are going to be less satisfied with a movie that leaves them feeling down after such a high.

I thought of Daniel’s insistence on fighting as a matter of pride, of vanity- not out-right revenge. Either way, he’s still using karate for the wrong reason. Maybe there would be a flash-forward to ten years later and Daniel-san goes ballistic when he walks in on Miagi having tea with Julie-san or some jazz, at which point Miagi tells Daniel-san that he’s a has-been because he fucked up, time move on, be tree in wind and sway with it instead of being rock and refuse move, get many things smashed against self, not good.

I have to agree with Wayne. The context of the time must be taken into account. At a USAKF (the organization from which the USANKF split off) tournament in Chicago in the 80’s they ended up using every available ambulance in the area due to injuries.

As with most things where one tries to analyze the past, you must first understand the context.

Also, this from Darryl Vidal, who appears in the semifinals of the tournament and is beaten by Johnny – and who also dressed up in a fat suit and bald wig to stunt double for Pat Morita in the beach scene –

“But his biggest secret is the one that must leave his student’s eyes wide with awe:-

“…the crane technique, as depicted in the movie, isn’t a real move in any karate or kung-fu. Pat Johnson told me what he wanted, and I basically said, “you mean something like this?” It is widely recognized, and I still hesistate when I tell my karate students that I made it up. But as you might have guessed, there is very little practical application to the technique.”

I’ve always wondered how the Cobra guy survived this kick. In self defense courses it is said that you can kill an attacker buy delivering an upward hit to their nose with the palm of your hand. The force of the hit will drive the nasal bone up into the brain thus causing death. With the upward impact on the nose and the force of this kick – Johnny most certainly would have been the one in need of the body bag.

Actually, I was surprised to learn that is (mostly) a falsehood. The force of the blow required to drive that nasal bone into the brain through the skull is actually more than the bone itself can withstand before breaking. The force would have to be delivered with pinpoint precision at the exact point where the bone is strongest to even have a chance, and it isn’t all that great then, either.

Moral of the story? If you want to kill someone, the eye socket and the windpipe are much more fatal targets.